


let's get (meta)physical

by murkya



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:02:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murkya/pseuds/murkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn has a Niall situation that he's capital I Ignoring, and then suddenly he's got a burning problem he <i>really</i> can't ignore, capital letters or not. (modern myth/religious beings AU?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's get (meta)physical

**Author's Note:**

> AU/not real/not speculation, quite obviously 
> 
> (to S, if you're seeing this, thankyou x 100 for your assistance ✿(︶▽︶).。ｏ♡ )

It had started, Zayn thinks, somewhere in America. Hindsight is 20/20, and the signs had been there; they’d just flown right by them. Too fast, too blurred.  Just another pinprick light against the electric storm of activity, the neon-bright over-tired fatigue and adrenalin coursing through them.

 

***

Zayn hasn’t had a smoke in a week and it’s fucking _killing_ him. The two weeks off had been – well, not great in that respect, as such, since he’d still been smoking, but he’d cut down and he’d been able to actually _relax_ for a while. He hadn’t want to go cold turkey and ruin the precious time off with his family, but it meant that a cig-free Japan had been tense to say the least and China wasn’t looking to be much better. He takes a moment to savour that intense, sudden pang of want, and then hauls himself out of the van, keeps a vice grip on his backpack and his head ducked down as security shove through the crowds to get them in the front door. There’d been some confusion about their entrance plan and their landing times, and they have to go through the front of the hotel instead of sneaking in the staff back way.

He has to catch his breath in the lobby, feeling frazzled and a little chaotic after the frigid snap of winter air. The others look just as bad. Louis looks almost thunderous, mouth pressed into a tight line, and Niall’s leaning heavily into Harry’s side, still sleep-rumpled from the flight and looking peaky after the crowd.  Zayn doesn’t know what time it is, just knows it’s dark enough to be night.

They cram into the elevator and Zayn’s crowded against the wall, leaning his head against the mirror. The lift is all gold and black and shine, reflecting back onto itself until that’s all Zayn sees in his tiredness, like they’ve fallen into some strange fractured half-place, travelling up and up. He catches a sliver of tired blue eye and when he turns Niall’s smiling at him, a little wan.

Zayn scrubs a hand over his face. He needs to stop drinking on planes, shit.

Team conference is the last thing any of them want right now, but they’ve got a bunch of emails from management to go through, and Paul’s busy coordinating security for tomorrow. They fall into the plush couches of the suite with a groan while Louis paces, still in a mood after the hectic, tense pace of the day.

“Alright,” Louis says, “we’ve got tomorrow off, and Paul’s organising escorts for that-” Harry snorts at the word _escort,_ and Liam shoots him a look, the _can-we-just-get-through-this_ look. Louis doesn’t seem to notice, just flicks the emails about sponsorships to Niall and some invite to Harry, something about an upcoming tv show in America after they wrap up the tour in London.

Harry fumbles the catch and falls over his chair, and Niall can’t stop laughing, disorder loud in the quiet tension of the room. Zayn and Liam share a moment of eye-contact on the opposite lounge – they both know that everyone’s irritable enough without a bicker fest to end the night - but before they can mention anything Louis says _stop_ and suddenly everything just does. There’s a long, still moment, a great yawning abyss, like a breath drowning somewhere deep in the chest, stuck, and Zayn stands up, watches Louis’ blue, unblinking eyes and says, “Louis, don’t.”

There’s a lot of sudden movement at once. Zayn and Liam are moving across the room to Louis, but Liam gets there first, catches him as the colour drains from his face and he drops like a dead weight, completely unconscious. Harry crouches beside him, shaking and running his hands over Louis’ arms, his face, and Niall stands besides Zayn and stares down with him.

“What,” Niall says, hoarse, “what the fuck was that.” They’d all felt that – that _thing_ under Louis’ voice, like something too big to even be heard.  Niall turns to Zayn, expression horrified and oddly, painfully distant, and Zayn realises they’d heard something similar come out of him, too.

“Something’s happening,” Liam says, looking up at them wide-eyed and lost, and it sounds like the understatement of the century.

 

***

Louis comes to looking confused and angry as _hell_. “I just had the most awful dream and I’m incredibly pissed about it,” he snipes, and they can all tell he’s terrified under the sarcasm. “Don’t all look at me like that, where’s the tea for the invalid?”

He shuffles up the couch they’ve laid him out on and groans, a hand smacking over his eyes. “This,” he says, while Niall and Harry scramble about looking for the kettle, “is the worst migraine I have ever had.”

“Louis,” Zayn says, but there’s none of that terrible weight behind it like before. Instead of passing the fuck out again Louis just sags against the lounge arm quietly. “Louis, are you okay?”

Louis looks at him while Liam watches, hovering with his phone in his hand. “I don’t know,” he says.

Harry and Niall finally return to the room clutching enough Styrofoam cups for all of them.

“Paul’s on his way,” Harry says a little desperately, leaving his cup on the coffee table and falling to his knees beside Louis. “How do you feel?”

It’s an oddly touching, domestic scene, all of them crowded around Louis in the calm of the room, carpet and couch and wallpaper blending together with all the beige and brown.  Maybe if they just pretend Louis’ just had a funny turn things will turn out okay, Zayn thinks, and feels the hysterical laughter in his gut.

“I’ll be fine,” Louis says, and Zayn watches him pull himself together. He leaves his hand resting on Louis’ shoulder. “You should all go get some rest.” _We’ll deal with this in the morning_ , he doesn’t say.

They leave Louis with Paul, last looks of concern thrown over their shoulders, and when Niall follows him down the corridor to his room Zayn doesn’t question him. Harry and Liam are down the other end of the hall, and Zayn walks slow enough to be sure they’ll be in their rooms by the time he and Niall reach his.

“I don’t-” Niall says, once they’re in the room, and then he stops, hands clenching uselessly by his sides.

 Niall has come into to Zayn’s hotel room like this - by himself - exactly four times. The first time was in Turkey last year, mid-way through their previous tour. They’d watched TV and Niall had sat in the hard, plastic chair, watching Zayn with a wonky half-smile through the muggy heat and the fog of beer, and Zayn had stared back and _realised_. The second, months later, back in America for promo, and Zayn had tugged at Niall’s wrist and bared his teeth until Niall pushed him up against the door and jacked him off.  He made it feel like a victory being won, grin bright and close, close enough to kiss, close enough for Zayn to see just how definite that hairs-breath distance was. How impassable.

The third was on the last hotel stop on the American leg of _this_ tour, months before Australia and New Zealand and Japan and all the breaks in between.  After Zayn was finally getting used to the gut-stuttery hidden happiness of the traded handies in the tour bus bathroom. (Zayn didn’t like to think too hard about that, how quickly it had become so habitual for them on that continent.)  Zayn hadn’t thought anything could get better, coasting on the high from a killer show straight to hurried orgasms, with Niall laughing into his shoulder when Zayn managed to open the cabinet with an elbow and whack himself in the side of the head as he came, whispering “Sh!” like it’d achieve anything. Then Niall did him one better – turned up at his door, on that last night before the flight back. Before they went back to London for the break, back to families and their apartments and normalcy. Niall had pushed him slowly to the bed and shimmied him out of his sweatpants, humming like there were words on his tongue that he was holding in. He had pressed his mouth against Zayn’s dick instead.

Zayn watches him now, motionless and tired in the middle of the dim, unlived-in hotel room, none of the usual hidden humour in the shadows under his eyes.  Niall doesn’t seem to _want_ anything, not like the other times, he just. Is. Stands there stranded on the carpet and _is._ Zayn’s head feels completely addled.

“It’s late, yeah?” Zayn settles for saying, yawning.

Thankfully their luggage has been brought up. He rummages through it and throws Niall a clean shirt. Niall catches it and looks at him, tired and worn, and then he tilts his head to the side. For a moment Zayn thinks Niall is going to say something anyway, or maybe just leave, but he gives a crooked smile instead.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

They don’t talk much, just strip down to their underwear and shirts and clamber on the bed.  According to the clock it’s almost four in the morning. Zayn yawns again.

Niall tangles himself around Zayn easily, forehead pressed against his neck, and Zayn chews his lip. This is … New. Sure, they had bunked together, and they were all an affectionate group well enough. The feel of Niall around him, the smell of his cologne mixed in with the lingering hints of aeroplane air-conditioning and old clothes – it’s familiar, yeah. Lately Zayn had been more used to it mixed with the smell of sex, too, until in Japan. That fourth time.

Zayn’d  gone cold turkey as soon as he was off the plane and been in a foul mood not long after. He was snappish and bitter with cravings during all their interviews, and that night Niall had turned up and made Zayn’s breath catch with anticipation, looking at Niall leaning casually against the doorway. But Niall had just shaken his head and laughed at Zayn’s expression. He dragged Zayn into his bed for _hugs_. Being in Zayn’s room made it different from the band-ly, bro-y, “I love you, man” back-thump hugs; the backdrop of the past was too big, too _present_. Niall had run his thumb against Zayn’s wrist, poked softly at his tattoos and hummed happily as they drifted off, but they were still _there_ , those ghost-memories of the other hotel rooms. Haunted by the sound of Niall when he came against Zayn’s hand, the farewell blowjob that hadn’t been a goodbye so much as a promise for when they were back on tour. So much tied to the feel of new sheets and unfamiliar television systems and room service menus.

Zayn had been glad enough to write off the Japan Incident as a product of the stress that the pointy of a world tour brings, was happy to leave it as a one off, but now it was a _thing_. It was a thing that was _odd._ Zayn never thought he’d know a Niall whose end-motive wasn’t orgasms, or food, or both at the same time. 

(There had been that time in Vegas, drunk on Armand de Brignac, where they had both been far more bold than they’d ever been before or since. Harry had dared Niall to do something, something unimportant, and Louis had said, “What, not even for a burger? Two burgers? With _chips_?”

Zayn had sat up lazily, his head still spinning with the sight of dawn, new and purple on the horizon. “Not even if I give you the greatest head of your life to go with?” he mumbled crookedly, only just resisting the urge to wink as Liam wooped with laughter and Harry rolled off the bed cackling. Louis, Zayn had noted dimly, had an eyebrow raised in his direction.

“You’re on, Malik,” Niall had said, and then _he’d_ given in and winked properly. )

Niall falls asleep easily, here in this new, smaller hotel room, the carpets chocolate brown instead of Las Vegas blue. He has his hand clutched in the front of Zayn’s shirt, and Zayn tries to clear his head, not think about Niall’s crumpled, faded look in the elevator, or the blank shock on his face when Louis had fainted.  Instead Louis’ voice goes round and round his head, the moment of unblinking, razor blue and _stop stop stop stop stop stop_.

 

***

When Zayn wakes up the first thing he thinks is _water_ , followed by scorching pain somewhere under ribs.

“Shit,” he gasps, rolling out of his empty bed and stumbling into the bathroom. He gulps water straight from the tap, scrubs it over his face, and something lessens, feels a little looser in his chest, and he can breathe right again. His skin still feels funny, though, all tight and hot and shivery under the water. When he looks in the mirror he half expects to see something wrong, but it’s just him, tired and scruffy and washed out, but still him.

“Are you okay?” Niall says, ducking his head in. Oh, so he hadn’t left. Zayn wonders which Niall this is, friend-Niall, fuck-buddy-Niall, new strange cuddle-friend-still-kinda-sex-ish-though-Niall. _Not the time for this stupid fucking crisis,_ he thinks, and nods.

“We should go see Louis.”

 

***

They end up in Louis’ room instead of the suite, chowing down on breakfast while Louis sits in an armchair and bounces his knee anxiously.

“Can we all,” he starts, and then pauses, like he’s screwing up his courage, “agree right now that this is some real, magical kind of bullshit?”

Liam coughs and Zayn doesn’t say anything, just stays leaning against the wall, watching Harry watch Louis and Niall scratching at his jaw nervously. No one seems willing to be the one to agree, to put things in motion.

 “Remember, that concert in, um, in that town, um-” Harry starts hesitantly, “when you told the audience to be quiet and they just…did?”

There’s a moment of silence, while they think back to those odd moments over the past few months, those strange little incidents that hadn’t really meant much until they were stacked on another.  In Belgium, where Louis had touched a fan’s hand and she had fainted instantly, eyes rolling back in her head worryingly; in Australia, where Liam had broken a surfboard clean in half, and no-one had been able to figure out how;  in Italy, where Harry and Niall had been complaining about the broken air-conditioning and it had suddenly turned itself on. And all the way, right back in America, in some town in the middle of who-knows-where, when Zayn’d wished, quite suddenly, to be back in his childhood bedroom, back playing xbox with Ant and Danny, and less than thirty seconds later his phone had rung through the silence of midnight. _Realised out of nowhere we hadn’t talked in a coupla days, yeah_ , Ant had said, tired and easy, and Zayn had thought nothing of it.

They all hear Liam’s quiet “ _Shit_.”

“What the fuck is happening,” Niall says again, and Zayn wants to just go back to his own hotel room and sleep forever and ever.

Louis takes a few deep breaths and rubs his hands together. “Apparently I’m the one who gets to be a superhero for now,” he says, smiling a little grimly. He doesn’t look very happy about it.

“It feels bigger than your skin, doesn’t it,” Zayn says, out of nowhere, and Louis looks at him sharply.

Liam groans and buries his head in his hands. “Not you too!”

Zayn pushes off the wall, uncrosses his arms to shove his hands in the pockets of his jeans instead. “Not much we can do about it now, as long as Louis doesn’t go all hulk mode on us again.”

“What about you?” Niall says, surprisingly sharp, and Zayn shrugs.

“M’ heading out. It’s our day off, innit? Got some shopping to do. See you later, boys.”  They stare at him disbelievingly, watching him as he walks out, but no one dares tell him otherwise, so he’s out free and unscathed.

 

***

In truth Zayn goes to a department store with one of the security.  He ends up leaving him on the white goods floor to hide in the bathroom and hyperventilate and puke for half an hour. He needed to get away for a while, get out of that feedback loop and _think_. 

People aren’t meant to feel like their bones are made of  hot iron. People aren’t meant to have vision that goes all funny and slidy if he doesn’t concentrate, like he’s behind a sheet of warped glass. People, he thinks, glum and horrified, aren’t meant to be able to vomit ghostly, barely there flames into a toilet bowl. He makes sure not to catch his sleeves alight and avoids the toilet paper – he doesn’t need to be setting off any smoke alarms – and rinses his mouth at the sink instead.

He can see it in the mirror now, and the realisation of how quickly things are changing has him clutching at the cool ceramic of the sink. He looks – darker, more definite, like out of the corner of the eye he’d have a shadow ringed around his outline. If he moves his head quickly and doesn’t focus too hard on his reflection there’s the same ghostly flames there too, licking over his skin and the air around him. He sucks in a breath, and then another, and feels himself pull together. He still looks… different, but not quite as terrifying. Just sort of… more  _there_ than he probably should be.

They just have to find out what had started this and then make it stop, obviously, he decides, dragging the hapless security back to the hotel, through the crowd starting to build out the front of the department store and the shock of cold air and into the van and then they drive through the screaming mob and then when they get to the hotel the driver doesn’t speak enough English for a conversation and the security guard doesn’t speak Mandarin enough to get them around the back so it’s the first day all over again, pushing through the crowd, stranger’s hands grabbing at his clothes and hair and neck, hot in the frigid winter and always that constant, never ending high-pitch scream.

When they finally get into the elevator Zayn feels so tense he’s practically vibrating out of his own skin. The bodyguard is staring at him. “Alright, mate?”

“Fine,” Zayn snaps, rubbing at his forehead and wincing again at all the mirrors and gold and black, too bright to bear. The bodyguard blinks, blankfaced, and Zayn realises there was a touch of it, there, that undercurrent to his voice. He swallows, tries to get his heartbeat under control.

“Sorry,” he tries, but the bodyguard won’t make eye-contact. Zayn swallows again. When he gets out of the lift he makes a beeline straight for Louis’ room and doesn’t look back, not once.

“Oh, brilliant of you to join us,” Louis snaps as he opens the door, “we were just about to head down for dinner-”

“Louis-”  Liam interrupts, but Louis barrels on regardless: “But oh, I forgot, I’m leaving footprints in the _concrete floor_ , now, and every time I look someone in the eyes they _pass out,_ and Mister Malik here was too busy on his shopping trip-”

Zayn punches him, hard and lightning quick, just like he’d been taught, and the crack reverberates throughout the room. Zayn sees it, then, that – there’s no words for it; it’s Louis but real, terrifying and rageful, consuming the space, centred around Louis’ eyes on him. It’s big and hungry and Zayn’s tenuous grip on himself almost slips – he almost falls right through, maybe further than Louis even, to the pure burn, but he takes a normal human breath and holds himself.  Zayn stares Louis down – _all_ of him - and says, “Well I’m back, now, so let’s eat.”

And just like that, Louis shrinks down. Zayn can’t _think_ right about this, feels that gut-shaking fear of something too big for him to define, but it’s like – like the layers re-aligning, only letting through the human side of Louis now. The human side that’s rubbing his jaw and smiling at him, a little feral.

“ _You_ can look me in the eye,” Louis said, “so why did Niall faint?”

Zayn’s stomach lurches and he takes a step forward, takes a step closer to Louis, who grabs a hold of his arms.

“He’s fine,” Liam says, taking his hands off his ears and looking slightly less like he’s going to piss his pants. “He’s in the bathroom. Louis nearly hurled himself out the window when it happened, so don’t think of-”

“I wouldn’t,” Zayn says shortly, like he hadn’t punched Louis only moments before. Liam stares at Zayn’s shoes, long and hard, and Zayn thinks that maybe, just maybe, Liam gets it. He was trying to, at least, chewing his lip and watching the way Louis is carefully, carefully places his hands around Zayn, trying to work around this new _thing_. Liam’s eyes flick back up to Zayn, but he’s still avoiding eye-contact. Zayn feels like puking again.

Zayn rests his forehead against Louis’ shoulder. “This is bad,” he whispers, and feels Louis nod.

It turns out Harry is with the crew and making excuses for all their odd behaviour, but by the look on Liam’s face it sounds more like Harry had needed to get away. Zayn understands, though, and the memory of Harry’s pale, frightened face from last night has him sagging into one of the adjacent seats. Liam and Niall go to meet Harry for dinner with the rest of the crew. Zayn has to cover his face with his hands and turn his back on the door when they leave.

 Niall says a quiet “Bye, Louis,” and there’s a tiny pause before “Bye, Zayn,” and Zayn hunches further in on himself and just. Doesn’t want to see.

Louis turns the light off and lies on the bed, pats next to him for Zayn. Lying next to him isn’t the most comfortable – Zayn can feel something wrong, like two north ends of a magnet pointed together, unable to meet.

“Whatever is happening,” Louis starts, “is making us not work.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to control it?” Zayn says, voice cracking; he barely wants to ask. He knots his fingers on his stomach. It feels like eons ago that he got dressed for the day. How could he spit fire and punch holes in the world and still be wearing the same boring black shirt?

“We have to,” Louis says, voice like steel. “We _will_.”

 

***

Zayn doesn’t know if it’s a side effect of the – whatever this shit is, but he has some truly, awful nightmares that wake him near 3am, sweat-soaked and with the feel of ants crawling under his skin. A cold shower helps, a little bit, but he still remembers the dreams too well to get back to sleep. It wasn’t a lot of details, just… the feeling of it. Some ancient city, buildings of stone, dark and flickery with firelight. It’s him, but not him, above and within the countless soldiers, blade in hand and death between his teeth, wordless roar of war coursing through him. The usual, he thinks bitterly, reaching for his toothbrush to get the taste of hot, coppery blood out of his mouth.

He sits at his window, cracks it open as wide as he can for the cutting, lung-burning cold and fantasises gloomily about having a smoke. Even then, he wonders if’d been as much of a relief as he thinks it would. At least he’s feeling more human now; weary, yes, but the tiredness in his muscles reminds him that he _has_ muscles, which is generally preferable.  

There’s a quiet knock on his door and he jerks away from the cool pane of glass. When he opens the door Niall’s standing there, arms wrapped around himself. He looks past Zayn, right to the open window.

 “You don’t even need to smoke here,” Niall says, crooking a half-smile. “There’s enough pollution for you to get your hit anyway.”

And it was true – there’s so much smog and light coming from the city that the stars aren’t even visible. The night sky is a dull, bruised yellow-grey, and it makes Zayn’s mood all the more dour. Fucking _metaphors_ and shit, he thinks, trying not to sigh too pathetically.

Niall follows him into the darkness of the room and they sit on the edge of the bed, not talking. Niall’s humming, though, and then he’s mumbling, tapping his fingers against the bed. Zayn recognises it as an old Michael Bublé when he starts with the words. He flops back against the bed and closes his eyes to listen, the cold air coming in the window getting at his hands, the sensitive skin of his neck and stomach. When he looks up at Niall – _river running free, you know how I feel; blossom on a tree, you know how I feel_ \- he’s flushed red in the new chill, creeping up his neck, and Zayn doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A space forms, then, deep somewhere inside the fire:  empty and calm, a little hollow place for himself.  

Niall looks down at him as he finishes, smiling and running his hand through his hair self-consciously, and Zayn smiles back, glad he doesn’t have to lie, even if it’s a little tentative and raw. Niall gets up and closes the window.  

Niall still hasn’t kissed him, he thinks, a little sad and a lot resigned. He’s too tired and confused to pretend like it doesn’t matter to him. He sort of wishes he had enough room amongst him for it to be big and important right now, but mostly he just looks at Niall and really, really, wants for Niall to be the one to do it, to split that space that sometimes feels so miniscule it’s on an atomic level and so huge they could have whole worlds between them.

“’M not really game to see what would happen if I-” Niall pauses, stands in front of Zayn. “What would happen if we, uh.”

“Do it,” Zayn offers, feeling a little hysterical and very hashtag yolo, “Get down and dirty. Slap the salami. Bump uglies.”

Niall laughs with his face in his hands. “Yes, yes, alright! I get it! I get the disgusting, over-detailed picture. _Christ_ , you’re odd,” he says, but he sounds fond, and he flops down next to Zayn and yawns. He bumps their hands together and grabs on for a second, clammy and familiar for a moment. He lets go and rolls away.

“I’ll see you in the morning, yeah,” and then he’s quietly opening and shutting the door, and Zayn drifts off into a quiet, dreamless sleep.

 

***

They’re on interview duty the next day, and thankfully both him and Louis are largely under control; they just have to make sure to sit far apart and not, like, talk to each other at all. Otherwise they’ll start bickering like they had over breakfast and make plates shatter and have teapots exploding and sending boiling water everywhere.

(No one had been hurt and nothing important had been damaged, thankfully, besides Zayn and Louis’ wounded pride when Liam had instinctively shouted, “Stop it! Bad Louis! Sit _down_ , Zayn!” like they were misbehaving dogs. Harry and Niall had thrown bread-rolls at them and said “Good boys!” and then the tension was gone as suddenly as it had arrived, everyone dissolving into laughter.)

Zayn waits until they’re standing right beside set, five minutes until they’re on.

“So, Niall,” he half whispers, half hisses, “how’d you know to turn up, then? In the middle of the night?”

Niall has the decency to not look confused, just guilty, and… something else that Zayn can’t read. Zayn’s already getting antsy in the confined space of the studio, sweating in his jumper and gulping from the glasses of water they’re offered, trying to keep himself in his own skin.  He resists the urge to reach out and grab his hand when Niall scratches at the back of his neck, coming to a decision.

“Liam came and knocked on my door to tell me. I dunno how he knew, but.”

Zayn whips his head around to stare and Liam, where he’s in the corner whispering hurriedly with Harry, fiddling with his watch wristband nervously like he hasn’t realised yet that he’s doing it.

“Guess it’s spreading,” Zayn says quietly, sadly, and Niall nods.

“He doesn’t seem so…”

Zayn can’t help himself, just twitches his eyebrows up as he grins. “Yeah?”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Not as _hot_ -” he mutters, accent stronger when he’s mumbling. He emphasises this with a shove to Zayn’s chest, then slings an arm over his shoulder. “You big stupid fire dude. What’s the name of that one in the movie?” He snaps his fingers, trying to remember –

“Johnny Storm?” Zayn asks, laughing, “the Human Torch? You-”

And then someone interrupts them, herds them onto set and produces a translator from somewhere. It’s probably one of their worst interviews ever; they’re all distant and distracted, and the language barrier doesn’t help, but they get asked their favourite superheroes and all of them manage not to cry with laughter and something else when Louis says _the hulk,_ and Zayn only just manages to stop himself from igniting all the flammable hair-product in the room with happiness when Niall says, somewhat predictably if not sincerely, _the human torch._

Afterwards they have lunch in their dressing room, and Zayn has to slip into the bathroom and strip down to his underwear and _let go_ for a minute, let himself slip between the layers of real until he’s standing somewhere comfortable and vast. He lets himself have five minutes – or something like it, at least, he’s not sure of time here – and then climbs back, folding all the little bits back in on himself until he’s standing concentrated and stinking of singed hair but mostly contained.

When he dresses and comes out again Louis is missing, and Harry points him to the stairs with a knowing look. “He said he was fine. But. I mean… He _said_ he was fine.” Zayn twitches his mouth to the side and Harry leans over, slings an arm around him and squeezes before pushing him towards the door.

Zayn finds him on the roof of the building, curled up next to an air-conditioning unit, small and rumpled against the worn, freezing concrete. Zayn sits on the other side and doesn’t say anything.

“I think… I think I figured something out,” Louis offers. Zayn makes a non-committal noise and tucks his hands into his sleeves. His skin still feels cold, but sort of distantly, too distracted by the furnace inside him.

“It’s like. It’s like, there are all these people, right, all these people buying our stuff and coming to see our shows, yeah?” Louis stands up and paces in front of Zayn, now, chewing on a thumbnail. “They all want something. They all… believe something, believe in us. Or. Something?” He makes a frustrated sound.

Zayn just watches him, feels his stomach churning. He’s starting to see the line Louis is taking – they’d read those nutter articles anyway, months ago, seen the crying fans beyond anything resembling _sad_ or _happy,_ those boring, every day emotions. They’d seen the photos of the creepy shrines.

“Louis,” Zayn says, “are you saying we’re _gods_?”

Louis laughs, sharp and loud. “No! Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Not that word, I don’t think. But. _Something._  I just- don’t you _feel_ it?”

And Zayn _does_ feel it. He sighs.

“I don’t remember anything like this in our contracts,” he mutters, and Louis offers him the most genuine smile he’s seen in ages.

 

***

The van ride back from the last interview that day is tense but not grim, and there’s only a tiny moment of panic when Louis and Liam are playfighting and Louis laughs so brilliantly that the streetlights pop and spark and go right out. He just shrugs, shoots Zayn an evil grin that he has no trouble mirroring. Harry leans against Zayn’s shoulder and isn’t scalded, isn’t a funny blur – Zayn’s vision is the best it’s been in the two days so far. It’s stupid to be optimistic, maybe, but he refuses to ruin a good thing. He sits his hand on Niall’s thigh, feels the almost imperceptible twitch as Niall settles next to him, and doesn’t move his hand at all until they have to get out.

When they get back to the hotel room he sits on the bed and sighs. Tomorrow was dress rehearsal and then the concert, and he needed the sleep, but…

He turns the tv on for company, and then the radio for good measure, and leaves the lights on, too, the room as alive as he can make it around him while he drifts off.  

 

 ***

He wakes up _engulfed_ and with the smoke alarm going and he has to suck in so hard, so suddenly that the lightbulbs shatter and he sees the reinforced glass of the windows bend ominously with the pressure change. He has a moment of relief where he sees that none of the bedding is on fire – he must have been fast enough – and then he stumbles to the bathroom and it explodes out of him, tears through the air and hits the tiles, too clean to even char or leave soot, so hot that Zayn sees purple, hits a place that’s dark and so unrecognisable he feels it like cold.

 

***

He comes to in the bath. The only sign that anything’s happened is that the shower curtain and towels have disappeared –burned away, he assumes – and he’s completely naked. He yawns, stretches out the twinges in his back from sleeping in such an awkward, curled up position.

He crawls out and lands limply on the ground. He can hear the tv and radio faintly from the bedroom, chatting over each other in a language he doesn’t understand.  The energy has retreated to a small, sparking lick deep in his chest, like it’s waiting for the gasoline. He lies on the cold bathroom tile and wonders how to explain how a spark of fire can be heavier than the smog that hangs over a whole city, how someone can slowly be more real than anything around them; how to explain that he can taste the clay of fallen empires and places he’s never been just as well as he can picture the streets of Bradford. How to explain this without the word _demon_ hanging like a noose around his neck.

 

***

They make it through the concert the next day by the skin of their teeth. The crowd in front of them doesn’t help at all; it’s like a magnifying glass focusing the sun, all that white-hot belief centred right on them, coursing through them until Zayn feels drunk on the power of it. There’s a single, terrifying moment that is seared into Zayn’s mind, into all of their brains probably until the end of time:  one of the girls in the front row throws something and catches Louis right on the side of the head. Louis turns.

Zayn can’t see Louis’ expression. Zayn’s  at the wrong angle and is desperately trying to get through his lines, but he can see the air sucked right out of Liam’s lungs as he freezes in panic. Louis stands stock still, and then he picks up the plushie doll that was pelted at him and all the tension leaves his shoulders. Zayn finishes his verse with relief. He allows himself a moment to relax, lets the fire flash bigger than his limbs for less than a second. He knows it’s not visible, not on this plane of reality at least (and shit, who would’ve thought he’d ever be thinking like that). It releases some of that wound-up tension that’s building from holding himself together, so tight and contained. He thinks he’s gotten away with it, that everyone was too busy being relieved at Louis not using his freaky powers on some poor fan.

Next song though, Niall skips over to him, digs his fingers into his shoulder and leans in, smiling. His voice is almost completely opposite, low and concerned: “You’re not going super saiyan on us, are you?”

Zayn lets himself laugh slide an arm around his waist. “No, m’fine. Just taking a breather.”

Niall nods, squeezes again, and then he’s gone.  Zayn has to blink hard to keep everything in focus, keep himself from just sliding into the comfort of letting go. He sucks in a breath, pulls himself together, and the show goes on.

 

***

Afterwards they pile into Liam’s hotel room - it’s far neater than the rest of theirs by this point - and have what Niall refers to as a Weird Fuckery Debrief.

“Ummmmm,” Harry says, raising his hand from the floor as they work their way through the room service they’d managed to negotiate for a late-night/early-morning delivery. “I think I can like, go invisible or something.”

“Oooooh, let’s see then,” Niall says, rolling onto his stomach and peering down at him.

They all watch Harry’s intense concentration face, and then when nothing happens Louis is the first to burst out laughing, falling from his spot besides Niall to wrestle Harry to the ground and mess his hair up.

“You twat,” he hoots, “You really had us going for a second!”

“No! I’m being serious!” Harry cries, going red and then suddenly he just – it’s not invisibility as such, but he sort of slips away from them a little. Zayn’s eyes skitter away from him and won’t focus on the spot where Harry was sitting. It’s an itchy sort of feel, like hearing a twig snap behind him in the darkness, except no matter how hard he tries to turn to look his eyes won’t let him.

“Well,” Liam breathes. “If now’s the time, I can, um, sort of pick up on what people are thinking? Sometimes? If it’s important?”

“Can you change it too?” Zayn says, and Liam snaps his attention towards him. Zayn shrugs and Liam deflates.

“I… I didn’t want to mention it or cause any worry, but,” he shrugs. Louis’ sitting up now, and Harry is slowly becoming a real thing that Zayn’s eyes don’t want to flee from. “I can sort of just… push things in the right direction, I suppose. Not change your thoughts or anything!” He hastily adds. “It’s more of a gentle suggestion.”

Zayn thinks to the van-ride home from the concert, where they’d all been exhausted and both him and Louis had been bleeding out at the edges and so, so close to spinning out and Liam had just said, “Hey Louis, pass me your phone,” and Zayn had felt himself relaxing.

“Ooh! I can, I can like, possess things too!” Harry says, getting into the swing of it. “It’s not very strong, but sometimes I can feel pictures of myself, and, like, I dunno, make them do things,” he says, widening his eyes to pull a truly awful face and wriggle his fingers at Niall, who’s staring at him a little disbelievingly. He lets his hands drop.

“I wonder what would happen if I got in the dolls,” he says thoughtfully, and by now they’re all looking at him a little horrified. He grins at them, one of those smug and charming smiles that he knows always works on them.

“…Right,” Niall says. “I, uh… well, I don’t exactly-”

“Aw,” Harry says, voice already teasing, and Zayn’s ready to roll his eyes already, “Is widdle leprechaun a late bloomer?” Louis and Liam laugh, but Zayn just watches the flush crawl up Niall’s neck.

“Get lost, kid,” Niall says easily, “Isn’t it past your bed time?”

“All of our bedtimes,” Louis yawns, helping Harry up.

Zayn follows them out, thinking of trying to sleep and feeling sick already, but Niall grabs his hand after Liam closes his door and Louis and Harry are down the hall.

“Wanna head out?” Niall says, and Zayn scoffs.

“It’s almost three, you have to sleep sometime,” he says, rubbing at Niall’s cheek with his thumb before chucking him under the chin.

“Oi,” Niall says, but he doesn’t push him away, just grabs a loose hold of Zayn’s wrist and lets it swing down between them. “I’ll be fine.”

They don’t bother waking Paul or asking for security. They duck into Niall’s room and bundle up in extra jumpers and their winter coats, pull on some snapbacks for something of a disguise. Niall even puts his Ray-bans on until Zayn laughs at him and Niall has to flick them at his head to shut him up.

“Right,” Zayn says, steeling himself as they reach the back exit. “Someone’s gonna recognise us, you know?”

Niall shrugs and grabs his hand as he pushes the door open out onto the street. “Who the fuck cares?” he says, grinning, and Zayn feels something flip in his stomach.

Niall seems to know where he wants to be going, and Zayn keeps in step and stares at the city around him, still awake and bustling.  He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it, even after all these years – the sight of an unfamiliar skyline, crowded in by skyscrapers against the frozen sky. It’s grey and dark with winter and Zayn’s a little sad they’re not staying for long enough to see snow.

They only go a few blocks before they’re at a big, wide street-mall, great billboards bright and chilly in the dark.  Niall sees something through the late night crowd and grins, says “wait here!” and leaves Zayn waiting under a street-light next to a big shiny women’s clothing store. He’s getting antsy already, joints humming, but at least the cold snaps away some of the energy that bubbles over. He’s tired and sore, but there’s something peaceful about standing about waiting, not signing this or that or having a camera in his face. It’s weird; he would have expected to be mobbed by now, but there’s nothing. While he gets a couple of funny looks it’s probably because he’s hopping from one foot to another to burn some energy off, rather than because anyone is recognising him.

When Niall finally gets back he’s clutching a coffee and – an icecream?

Zayn laughs as Niall hands it over. “Thanks, mate,” he says, oddly touched, and rips the paper off it before taking a bite. Niall just hums happily over his drink, blowing on his hands to keep them warm. He must’ve forgotten his gloves.

 “Here,” Zayn says, pressing the back of his hand against his knuckles, and closes his eyes to concentrate. He keeps the heat controlled, just lets it roll through his hand slowly.

“Mmmm,” Niall says, “Careful you don’t melt your icecream.”

When Zayn opens his eyes Niall’s flushed but he also isn’t shivering anymore, so that’s good. They don’t talk much, just stand and watch people wander by, even if Zayn sneaks sideways looks as he’s finishing off his now fully-melted icecream.

Niall catches him looking and laughs. “Here,” he offers, untucking a cig packet from his pocket.

“You wouldn’t!” Zayn says, already reaching, “who’d think you’d be such an enabler.”

“Won’t tell if you don’t,” Niall says, around his own cigarette, grinning a little wickedly.  It makes Zayn feel funny, all weightless like he hasn’t felt it days, and he leans over and snaps his fingers. The cigarette blooms to life and Niall inhales.

“That,” Niall says as he exhales, “was fuckin’ _awesome_.”

“Neat, huh,” Zayn says with a bit of a smile, not willing to admit that it was a fluke. Let him be impressed.

Smoking doesn’t really do much for him, apparently – it’s therapeutic but mostly from the habit. It’s just a different tang to what he’s already getting used to. It’s strange, being surrounded by so many people, in this packed city, with none of them seeming to recognise him. It makes him feel smaller and looser than he’s felt in- Well. Since a while. He would’ve thought it would make him feel crowded in, but he just feels like… he’s got space. For something.

They finish the cigs and amble through one of the department stores, look at suits they never would’ve thought they’d be able to afford. Now he could probably afford the whole shop, Zayn knows, and it makes him just as giddy as it had the first time he realised. Zayn thinks it’s mostly aimless wandering until Niall pulls him down the empty corridor to the bathrooms.

“Oh,” Zayn says, as Niall stops and turns, bouncing on the balls of his feet and smiling.

“I, um,” Niall says, a laugh behind his words, half-nervousness, “I know this isn’t the most…” He must see something in Zayn’s face, because he stills, and his expression slides into something more focused. “Eh, fuck it,” he breathes, eyes not leaving Zayn’s, and then he leans forward and kisses him.

 _Breathe_ – Niall pushes him against the cool concrete of the wall, cold hitting the heat of his back– _Breathe, Malik –_ his hands fisted in the waist of Zayn’s coat – sliding his mouth along Zayn’s jaw, sloppy – Zayn can barely keep up, has enough presence of mind to push back, slide his tongue against Niall’s – Zayn’s snapback gives up its hold and falls to the ground with a sudden _clack_ , and Zayn jerks back, knocking his head on the wall.

Niall kneels to pick up the hat and slings it over Zayn’s hair side-ways. Zayn wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, heart thudding, and then leans across to do the same to Niall.

“Gross,” Niall says, wrinkling his nose and getting close again, intent, and Zayn would laugh at him, make a joke, except Niall’s not looking, already close enough to kiss again in a way that has Zayn swallowing thickly.

Zayn pulls himself together enough to give a huff and bump him with his nose. “Enthusiastic,” he says, but it’s not much of a reprimand; Niall pulls back but still grins at him shamelessly. Zayn’s stomach is knotted and squeezed in the best way possible.

“Yeah,” Niall says, a little lamely, then steps back properly, gives Zayn some space. “Yeah.”

Zayn wants to close his eyes and not think for a moment, just gather himself together properly, but… he watches Niall instead, his eyes on Zayn as he lifts his own hat and rearranges his hair. Something about the gesture helps Zayn reign himself in better than any deep breathing exercises could in a million years.

“Step back,” he says, and Niall obeys without protest, just stands out of his way as Zayn _breathes_ and sends a glowing translucent fireball barrelling down the hallway, the air around them crackling with the energy. It blows itself apart at the end wall, no marks besides a poster that smoulders away.

“You’re fuckin’ fantastic,” Niall says hoarsely, and Zayn half-tackles, half hugs him, muttering “c’mon, quick, before security come to put the fire out.”

Niall laughs at him but follows, and they hot-foot it out of the shopping centre, don’t stop until they reach a street corner.  Zayn collapses against a signpost, gasping with hysterical laughter and muttering “Holy shit, I- holy shit,” as Niall gasps out a “I _know_! ”

They’re out of breath from the running and he might have singed half an eyebrow off and he’s looking like a complete idiot and people are staring now and he doesn’t care, just holds onto Niall’s sweaty, hot hand in the freezing cold and doesn’t care one little bit.

 

***

They’ve only been out for an hour, tops, but by the time they get back Niall’s yawning every third step and Zayn’s about to offer him a piggyback. They’re all giggly in the elevator, and Zayn feels flushed and happy, the cold still stinging his cheeks when they come out at their floor. Zayn desperately, desperately wants a repeat performance, but Niall also looks half-dead on his feet, so he resists the urge to press him into the mirrors of the lift. There were probably security cameras too, or something, he guesses, which he should probably care more about.

“Um,” Niall says, making Zayn stop, and then he hides another yawn behind his hand before swearing, rubbing his hand over his face in embarrassment. Zayn looks down at his own hands, still in his coat pockets.

“Um, I-” Niall starts again, then pauses, watching Zayn with a funny, crinkly eyed smile on his face. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”

Zayn can’t help smiling back as he nods. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Niall breathes, repeating dumbly, and then he leans over fast as anything and kisses Zayn on the cheek, his hand on his shoulder.

Something makes Zayn stop and look back from his walk to his room. He’s about to call out “good-night!” when he sees Niall stop, still facing away from Zayn as he fist-pumps and does a stupid dance. A hoarse, whispered _"Fook yea!_ " makes it down the hall, and Zayn has to shove his knuckles in his mouth to stop the laughter coming out, and something else too, some unbearable fondness.

 

***

They had a three day break after the concert; they’d planned it right at the beginning. A big family holiday and all that. They were meant to go sightseeing and be proper tourists and everything. While Zayn wishes the circumstances were a little better, well. It’s still nice to have a breather. One more closing show back in England and then they were … back to normal. He can’t stop the laugh that bursts out, oddly loud in his room. He should be getting up soon, he supposes, his stomach grumbling.

Zayn can’t even remember the last time anything was normal. Before all this magic stuff? Not exactly normal, having half the world know your face. Maybe back before he’d auditioned – but no, he thinks, groaning and rolling out of bed. There was always something.  It was funny: none of them had really ever thought they’d be able to go back to human, after this. It had already been too foreign too long. They just wanted to stop, like, feeling the fabric of everything straining around them.

 

***

“Alright,” Liam says, as they sit in the van, security peering at them from the front seat. “We can do this.”

They all exchange looks. Going out in public was dangerous enough without reality-warping bullshit involved.

“And here Harry comes to save the day,” Harry sing-songs, falling forward from the back seat and slinging his arms over Niall’s and Zayn’s shoulders. “C’mon everyone, in a circle!”

They shuffle around so they can all reach and hold hands. Security stares at them, and Zayn mutters an “Er, Harry, are you-” before suddenly they _lurch_.

“Oh,” Liam says, a little dumbly.

Zayn can feel it, kind of, like he’s slipped between some not-place and here. Everything is still a little slidy, but he can breathe out a little and let himself out a bit, harsh and bright, without hurting anyone.  Mostly it’s just cool how they walk outside and everyone looks past them, unseeing.

Louis drags them into the crowded market and it’s the most fun any of them have fun in _ages_. For once they aren’t the centre of it – they’re just lost in it, sliding through as everyone glides around them. Even the security drifts off eventually, looking confused but not distressed. People move around them like a river around a large, solid boulder, like they’re standing still and the world’s just moving to meet them.  Zayn manages to haggle with a very puzzled vendor and buy a bag of trinkets for his sisters, and when he tracks down Harry and Niall they’re trying to barter for a huge statue.

“Hotel! Sent! Shipping! Transport?” Harry is shouting, mostly to the sky, and Niall’s half folded over laughing while the vendor clutches the massive stone carving and looks somewhere two feet to the left of Harry.

“C’mon, let’s get the others and have lunch,” Zayn says, and they fall in step, taking their time down the avenues of noise and light, the smell of frying food already creeping up the aisle. Harry keeps drifting off and trying and failing to buy things, while Niall’s busy with his phone out, trying to take pictures of everything.  Zayn can feel himself starting to itch under his own skin again, but he pushes it down, too busy enjoying himself.

They find Liam and Louis near the food stalls and get Liam to order them food – with the language barrier and Harry still doing his thing, Liam’s got the best chance of all of them of getting the seller to understand – and eat as they walk.

It’s – it’s just _nice._ It’s a little overwhelming, being in such a crowded, intense place, but there’s something about it that’s a relief too.

Zayn, dizzy with something like courage, reaches out to hold Niall’s hand.  He can feel himself sliding through - too weary to really hold himself in now he knows that no-one’s really going to notice – and Niall squints at him.

“You’re cute when you’re all glittery,” Niall just says, and Zayn splutters.

“I do not _glitter_ ,” Zayn grinds out, but Louis overhears and laughs.

Something splits then, and suddenly, breath-taking and terrifyingly - Louis is Too Close; Zayn doesn’t know how he knows it, but he’s got to get Out, and he can feel himself stepping back, wrenching his hand from Niall’s as everyone spins to look at him. Someone bumps into Zayn and looks at him, recognition flickering in their eyes, and Zayn stares at Louis in horror.

“It’s gone wrong,” is all Louis says, over the noise of the market, and he’s clearly trying to hold himself back; Zayn can feel him like sandpaper on an open wound, and he’s aching to lash out and get rid of it, but he knows he can’t, not when Harry’s already losing grip a little, standing frozen with the others and staring in shock.

“Okay,” Liam says, “Okay,” and there’s something calmer now, a heavy blanket  helping drown out the urge to fight, or run, either, he’s just caged, gasping,; someone else bumps him and he falls closer to Niall, in the middle of the crowd moving past on either side –

Dimly, behind the roar in his head and there’s battery acid sparking under his tongue and petrol rainbows in front of his eyes, and _breathe_ , Malik - Harry’s got his hands around Louis’ wrists, and him and Liam are walking Louis away to where they’d agreed to meet the driver, and Niall, Niall is just _standing_ there, his eyes closed-

Niall opens his eyes and reaches for Zayn’s hand. “You’ll be fine,” he says, apparently unable to feel the intensity that Zayn knows he’s leaking out, that’s splintering its way out. Zayn breathes and blinks back to real.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, we didn’t-” Zayn gasps out miserably, but Niall shakes his head.

“I’ll call ahead and we’ll get another car sent,” he says, and that seems to be that; all Zayn has to do is keep hold of his hand as it becomes even harder to weave through the crowds, Harry wearing off more and more. When they finally get to the street Niall is pale-faced and sweating, and Zayn drags him in for a limp hug as he sees the car approaching. People are starting to get their phones out and take photos already, but he ignores them.

“Okay,” he says. “We’re alive. Everyone’s still alive. That’s. We did well. Right?”

Niall laughs into his neck and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, we did.”

When they get back they’re shaky and high with the relief of it, still shell-shocked and worried under it all.  Zayn still has the image of Niall stuck in front of his eyes, motionless and eyes closed in the dark rush of the market, and something about it makes him desperate and raw. Niall just drags him into his own hotel room. It’s new in a way that has Zayn’s stomach flipping, heat curling around his throat.

Niall kisses him just as eagerly as he had the first time, all tongue and teeth, and Zayn has to pull back and laugh shakily, push him into the wall to get him to behave. Niall grins at him, a little wild around the edges, suddenly clear against the smear of hotel room. Zayn can’t help laughing again, something other than humour trying to get out, little Niall with his bleach-straw hair and skinny arms and steady heartbeat, smiling at him, open and true, like Zayn doesn’t have flames turning him inside out an artery at a time.

“So restless,” Zayn says, chiding, grabbing Niall’s hands from where he’s trying to get them under Zayn’s jeans towards his arse. He holds them out in front, his hands around Niall’s wrists, and Niall lets him, loose and trusting as he leans off the wall to get closer. “C’moooon,” he wines, and Zayn bites at his lip before stepping back.

Niall flashes a grin at him, licking his lips as he steps around him. He hops backwards, half falling out of his jeans as he says, “Get your knickers off then!”

“Such a bloody charmer,” Zayn mutters back, but obliges, kicking them out of the way as he follows Niall to the bed, the cotton cool under his palms, and then his forearms as he leans over Niall.

Niall kisses him like he can’t taste the metal and ash and the certain, unchanged path of this, and maybe just for now that isn’t _here_. Zayn feels small and skinny and tired and impossibly human. He rolls and Niall follows with a grunt, leaning above him with a soft smile. Zayn lets Niall push him down into the duvet a little; he kisses him again, tongue wet against tongue. Niall’s fingers digging into his back is so ordinary that Zayn almost cries. Niall scrambles his fingers against his ribs until he laughs instead, his smile tucked against the side of Zayn’s face, and he wants to burn the feel of Niall’s hands into the flesh of his chest and arms and stomach and thighs forever.

 

***

The next day Louis and Liam are going for a day trip somewhere, somewhere out of the city, and no-one says anything but they know it’s an attempt to slow down what seems to be inevitable.  

Zayn refuses to think about what they’ll do if this doesn’t let up, how Louis and him’ll be able to record together, be on tour together. Be friends together.  Zayn stays in Niall’s bed and wears his clothes and has his shower there too, just needs to get away from himself.

“It’s nice havin’ you around and all,” Niall says as he flicks through the television channels next to him on the bed, “but if you get soot on those jeans I’ll be mad,” he smiles at Zayn to make sure he knows he’s joking but Zayn feels guilty anyway. It wasn’t fair to rely on Niall like this; Niall was just being Niall, and a good friend, and Zayn has no business using him to reach back to that place where he feels a little more like a person.

“Sorry,” he mutters, “I’ll get my own.” He goes to clamber off the bed but Niall reaches across and holds his wrist, not tight or anything.

“I was joking,” he says, a little exasperated, “seriously, it’s fine. Burn them off, I don’t care. I’ve got plenty.”

Zayn swallows. “I. Okay.”

Niall watches him thoughtfully. He’s still got his hand around Zayn’s wrist.

“What do you know about Irish myths and stuff?” Niall says, eyes not leaving Zayn’s face.

“Um, not much? Why? Also, um, remember in the shopping centre? What if someone had seen us,” Zayn says in a quick rush, barely realising he’d even asked that little thing that had been niggling at him but that he hadn’t wanted to bring up. In case. Of something.

“No one was going to see us, Zayn,” Niall says, and something about how he says his name makes him stop.

He looks at Niall. “When you said you didn’t have, like, powers yet-”

“I never said that,” Niall says easily, like he’s in on a joke that no-one else is, like he’s waiting for Zayn to get the punchline. Zayn stares. Niall sighs, smiling embarrassedly and messing at his hair.

“I don’t really know, to be honest. It’s like – it’s like when things need holding together, when things aren’t going right, I can… I can pull things together. I can do little things, like make sure no-one goes down a corridor, make it so no one feels like recognising us,” he says, giving a small, secret smile, and Zayn remembers the peacefulness of that late night, early morning  adventure with an unbearable ache.

Zayn shuffles closer. Niall has let go of his wrist now, has his hand on the duvet. Zayn leaves his own beside it, losing the courage to touch him right at the last moment. “And you didn’t think we should know because…?”

Niall sighs. “It’s not definite like Liam’s, or Harry’s. It works sometimes, if I really want it, but then plenty of other times…” he quirks a smile and shrugs, like _eh, what can you do._ “Nup, nada.”

A frown creeps over his face.“I couldn’t stop that thing happening yesterday,” he says, voice forced casual, and Zayn can’t help it this time, finally bumps their hands together and leans over to kiss him.

“You shouldn’t have to. It’s not your responsibility,” he says, and he knocks their knees together before standing. He feels strangely vulnerable, like he’s laid out something he never intended to, but Niall is just smiling at him, crooked and small.

“C’mon, we should go find Harry. See if he’s managed to get his photos to dance yet.”

 

***

Zayn can feel Louis is back in the city almost immediately, an icy, itchy prickle racing along his arms.  When he calls him Louis answers with a, “You can feel it too, yeah?”

 “It’s getting stronger,” Zayn says, and Louis gives a _derrrr_ that has Zayn smiling despite himself.

“Liam accidentally got a town full of people trying to drown us because he had a passing desire for a drink,” Louis quips. “While the sight of Liam trying to politely turn down sudden offers from every car we passed was hilarious, it was pretty inconvenient.”

Zayn sighs. “Harry got his magazine self to move, and then jump five pages and give a strip dance to Britney Spears.”

 “We’re making it worse,” Louis says, and Zayn can hear Liam protesting in the background.

“We’ll figure something out,” Zayn says, a little desperately. “We always do.”

 

***

Zayn still can’t really sleep alone. He knows that Niall is just keeping him company, and he would’ve told him to go back to his own room, but.

It was their last night on tour, technically. They wouldn’t need to stay anywhere once they were back in England, and Zayn feels a little desperate now, unwilling to think of how he’ll go back to England and his empty apartment and Niall keeping that distance he always seems to keep unless they’re on tour, travelling and not tied down anywhere, caught up only within themselves. Zayn feels petty, wanting to savour this, but he’s only human. Mostly.

 “Me ‘n Louis are going to destroy us,” Zayn says, matter-of-factly from where he’s laid out on his carpet. It’s strange having it out in the open like that.

“No,” Niall says, just as matter-of-factly. He shuffles towards the edge of the bed and stops strumming half-heartedly at his guitar. “We won’t let you.”

“Oh really now,” Zayn says, folding his arm behind his head and looking up at him. Niall kicks off his shoes and then pauses.

“I want to try something,” Niall says, hands still in his lap.

“Um,” Zayn says, and sits up properly. He wonders if this is a god-angel-weird-spirit-shit thing, or a sometimes-we-have-sex-and-I’m-ignoring-a-lot-of-things-we-should-probably-be-talking-about thing.

“Don’t worry,” Niall assures him. “It shouldn’t hurt you. I think.”

Zayn purses his lips and hopes it’s a god-angel-weird-spirit-shit thing and not the latter. “You _think_?”

Niall raises his eyebrows at him. “Look, just, don’t laugh if it doesn’t work, okay? Go stand over there. And you’ll have to let yourself out, all of it, too.”

Zayn goes and stands in the empty spot and feels incredibly stupid. “You sure? I know it hurts to look at-” which is a pretty big understatement, really, because he knows how world-big and concentrated it feels just from his side, and he’s seen the raw impact of it on Niall’s face too.

Niall grabs one of his shoes. Zayn recognises it dimly as one of Niall’s old favourites, one of his lucky pairs. He holds it in his right hand and places his left on Zayn’s chest as he screws his eyes shut. Zayn can barely feel Niall’s hand like this, too many layers of real-not-real and power and light and _weirdness_ in the atoms that separate them.

 “Ready?” Niall says, and Zayn nods before he realises Niall can’t see him. He clears his throat, gives a “yeah.”

Niall starts murmuring under his breath, words that Zayn recognises as Gaelic, but they sound different to any of the little phrases Niall’s used before – Zayn can practically taste the power in them. The room thrums with it, on all the levels that Zayn can feel; when he concentrates and opens his other eyes, or that…  whatever that sense is, the room is practically alight with it, the raw energy shimmering. There’s some clinging to Niall’s eyelashes, fluttering in the eddies and swirls coming from Niall’s hands. Zayn stares, fascinated.

“Okay,” Niall says, taking a deep, shuddering breath, “Okay, here goes nothing.”

He brings his other hand up, taps the heel of his shoe on the back of the hand he’s got against Zayn’s chest. Zayn feels it like cold water on hot glass, that instant _crack,_ and he watches Niall’s eyes slide open as he crashes out of consciousness.

 

***

When Zayn wakes up he feels… Good. More human than he’s felt in days. The flame is licking away quietly inside him, yes, but he wakes up with arms and legs and a body made of flesh and blood, boring and normal, as opposed to pure godly fire, so it’s a good start.

“How’d it go?” Niall says, leaning over him. He hadn’t even bothered getting Zayn on the bed, just left him splayed out on the carpet, the arse.

“I’m not exactly sure what you were actually aiming to do,” Zayn says, sitting up and wincing – he’s been passing out and landing on hard floor far too often in the last few days.

“I, um,” Niall says, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the end of the bed. “I think I just, uh, balanced things a bit. Straightened stuff out. You know how I said sometimes it doesn’t work? I made it work.”

Zayn looks at Niall and blinks. “Niall, you’re-” he begins urgently, scrambling up, “you’re _bright_ , fuck what have I _done_ -”

He has to clap his hands over his eyes then, because Niall is something – something sharp, now, lancing like midday sun, and it strikes Zayn even with his eyes closed, right to the calm space behind everything else.

“Oh!” Niall says, “I think it’s safe to look now.”

When Zayn opens his eyes Niall is looking at his hand, turning it this way and that. It’s not quite so razor-bright, anymore, but it still hurts Zayn’s head, like harsh, loud chords. Niall looks mostly curious, none of the panic that Zayn can feel slowly draining out of him now that he knows Niall is safe. “I thought that might happen.”

Zayn resists the urge to punch him, or at least slap him around a bit. “ _What_ is happening?”

“I, um,” and Niall smiles at him, a little embarrassedly. “I figured out the way that might fix– well, it has, actually– fixed things a little.” He waves his hands uselessly in the air. “Also might have turned myself into a bit of a god.”

Niall, friendly and determined  Niall, had _turned himself into_ \- Zayn groans and lets himself fall head first onto Niall’s lap.

“I don’t really understand anything,” Zayn says, and Niall snorts, “but thank you. I think.”

Niall runs his hands through Zayn’s hair and laughs, small and happy. Zayn shivers – these new hands of Niall’s are warm, and have the same funny bump near the knuckles, the same bitten-down nails scratching through his hair – but they’re world-changing hands too, Zayn realises, forger’s hands that Zayn feels with all of him, not just his skin and nerves.

 

***

Their flight isn’t until late, so they farewell China by going out to hot-pot for lunch. It’s a little place Harry had heard about, with a cramped private room for them that has Zayn’s elbows knocking against Harry’s.

They have an unofficial, informal team meeting; it’s informal mainly because a lot of food gets thrown about and they’re all much more interested in trying shots of the lethal tasting spirits they’d managed to order than really getting into the nitty-gritty of their current semi-crisis. None of them really want to think about the long, tiring flight home. Zayn’s still running on a high; he feels the most in control he’s felt for days, and he can tell from Louis’ easy slouch over Harry’s shoulders that he feels it too. It’s like things have just… settled. There’s no fire trying to split out of himself anymore.

“Okay, okay, but is there any reason I can suddenly feel people kissing my wax statue right on the face if I concentrate hard enough?” Harry says, flippant and joking as he interrupts Liam, his chopsticks waving in Zayn’s face. Zayn resists the urge to set one of his curls on fire, just one of the little ringlets near his ear.

“Er,” Niall says embarrassedly. “I, uh, might have-”

Zayn sees Louis eyes narrow, and watches as Louis deliberately unfolds – not… bright, anymore, not like Niall had gone, and with none of that out-of-control awe and colossal horror that had been so threatening before.  Zayn doesn’t feel his hackles go up. He’s just. Immense, all of him. They all stare.

“I haven’t killed you all!” Louis says, chipper and sarcastic, but there’s that note of stark relief in his voice, too. “I haven’t destroyed the world!”

“No, you haven’t,” Liam says gently, his hand on Louis’ wrist, and Louis smiles back, folds back into himself until he’s sitting there in his hoodie and jeans and old shoes, tired but human, just Louis Tomlinson, Popstar.

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna kill each other, so everyone can stop panicking and thinking of breaking their contract,” Niall says, unprompted with mouth full of dumpling as he waves his chopsticks around the table. No one says anything, but Louis quirks his mouth at Zayn a little guiltily. Zayn mock salutes him. And Louis would’ve, Zayn realises. He would’ve dropped out if he thought it meant the rest of them could still keep going. What an _idiot._

“What?” Liam’s looking at him. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Niall grins. “Don’t you feel better at all?”

“Well, yeah,” Liam says, still confused, “but how?”

Niall shrugs and takes a swig of his beer. “I just shook all the crooked bits until things fitted together right.”

So _simple,_ Zayn thinks, a little floored. He’s been stunned by Niall, he realises, for a rather long time.

“Alright, but still, _how_? I thought you said your thingo only worked sometimes,” Harry says around a mouthful of food, trying to take a photo of dinner with his phone at the same time.

Niall doesn’t look up at him and Zayn can’t read his face properly, in this yellowed, dim light. “It- I mean, like, the world, I guess – wasn’t letting me, but. But I can be stubborn sometimes,” he looks up now, flashes a smile, “and I get what I want.”

“Ooer,” Louis says, laughing, and Niall shoves him and then Liam is shoving Louis back from the other side and then they’re managing to all wrestle around a table that’s got litres of boiling water on it.

Zayn gives up when Harry gets him in a headlock – Zayn had zapped him in his side, barely any heat at all, but Harry had called cheating anyway and been granted a penalty – and instead just watches Niall. They’d never… _Done_ things back home.  But they’d never been gods, or spirits, or superheroes, or firebeings. Whatever. Things had changed.  They weren’t sliding towards destruction anymore, no, but. _But._ Him and Niall were still crooked pieces all shaken up, waiting in the air, ready to fall and see if they’d fit when they landed.   

 

***

Things are calmer. The flight is still difficult – Zayn sits in the bathroom and hyperventilates again, like that time only a week or so ago. It felt more like eons rather than days had passed since then. This time when he vomits it’s mostly just dinner, though, and he figures it’s more nerves than anything supernatural. The fire that’s been consuming him is just nestled in his gut, warm and quiet, but it’s hard to trust. 

Zayn isn’t a hundred percent sure how fixed they are. Or if this is fixed at all. All he knows is that Niall thinks he’s solved something, and it’s more a comfort to the rest of them than they’d probably like to admit. All along they’d thought whatever was happening was just the fans, just that pressure cooker surrounding them. But one in a million miracles were already the everyday for them, and maybe they hadn’t ever thought to question it – their families, proud, the crew with them around the world, even themselves, holding each other up, something other than friends or brothers, that _one in a million_ something. Maybe they were just as much a part of making themselves into these new people that they’d become.

Zayn thinks back, to how Niall had always trusted him, wholly and completely, even when Zayn was more some _thing_ than some _one_. Maybe that trust – the stubborn belief holding them together - was more important than any of them have given credit. When he looks over the seat behind him Niall’s awkwardly splayed out, snoring with his head tilted back, mouth wide open and drooling. Zayn’s never had to try harder not to fall in love.

 

***

Being back home is…odd.  He can sleep now without nightmares, but it’s still strangely lonely, his big, shiny place all to himself. Danny and Ant had taken the fire-god-demon-monster-but-still-a-good-person,-no-really, thing pretty okay, considering, but he didn’t want to push them on it. Mostly they seemed to just think it was really cool and unfair they didn’t get to have a go. It’s oddly touching, how quickly and easily they seem to fall into accepting it: scrawny Zayn Malik from high school, now a teeny bopper, now a squillionaire, now a fire-breather.

Tour always takes a while to recover from but it’s even more intense now.  He amuses himself by sending little bursts of flames at the ceiling, leaves them hanging around like tiny glowing fairies that ghost around after him. They’ve only got two days until the last concert.

The gate buzzer goes and Zayn checks the camera. There’s a massive, blurry eye, then half a nose, and finally Niall steps back far enough that Zayn can recognise him.

“Hi,” Niall says, when Zayn meets him down by the gate. Niall’s all bundled up and funny looking, earmuffs and scarf leaving his face round and pink in the freezing cold. Zayn’s just in a tee and jeans. Internal heating and all that.

“Hi,” Zayn says, and then leads the way inside.

Zayn goes to put the kettle on, but Niall doesn’t follow. When he sticks his head around the corner Niall’s standing near the threshold, clutching his jacket and hovering.

“Dude, come on in,” Zayn says, jerking his head towards the lounge, and Niall’s face shows relief.

Niall’s strangely reserved and it sets Zayn on edge. He sits on Zayn’s massive Italian leather couch and clutches the mug Zayn hands him, looking oddly self-conscious in a way that Zayn’s not used to.

“How are you,” Zayn tries feebly, sounding wrong and stilted. Niall stares at him and laughs, something rough about it, then quietens.

He sips his tea and shrugs, seems to some sort of internal decision because he blurts, “I didn’t – I didn’t want you to think I was making you do things, that I was using my power-”

“Oh! Oh,” Zayn says, and feels like smacking himself on the forehead. “No. I didn’t. Don’t think that. Why would I?” Niall stares at him, going red, and Zayn frowns as he asks, “Wait, you didn’t, did you?”

“No!” Niall exclaims, louder this time. “Well, I don’t think so. I definitely didn’t try to.” He looks awfully unsure and nervous; he finishes his sentence with a mumble into his mug. Zayn can feel his knee bouncing and presses his hand into his jeans to calm himself.

“It’s just,” Niall mutters, and he’s brick red by now, “I know it works by me wanting, wanting a lot, and-”

“Well,” Zayn says, “Well. If you want really hard to not be causing the wanting to be making things that _I_ don’t want-”

Niall stares at him blankly.

Zayn coughs and bites his lip to stop from smiling despite the situation. “I mean. You could. Just. Try using your powers to undo anything you… did…with your powers that you didn’t want them to do?” Zayn resists the urge to laugh at himself, at this ridiculous situation, because he knows it’s just the sick nerves leaping at the back of his throat that has him hysterical. He wasn’t sure how to explain it to Niall, that sense he’d gotten on the plane: it wasn’t _wanting_ , as such, that had pulled them all together, not entirely. There was that hard, essential certainty there too, small and rough but unarguable, like a diamond that just needed polishing to shine.

Niall’s head shoots up to stare at him, confused at first. Then his eyebrows furrow. “You don’t want me to undo this, do you?” he says hoarsely, looking at the space between them, and Zayn feels it again, those few steps like a hundred miles and a hundred light years, but there’s something _there_ too, bridging tentatively across the impossible distance.  

“Never,” Zayn says, trying to contain a weird, sudden happiness. “No, don’t do that. You idiot. Can’t you just wave your magic little fingers and prove to yourself that you’re being daft and worrying for nothing?”

Niall sparks golden, a sharp cut of brightness with his smile. Zayn winces but manages to smile back as Niall mutters under his breath, and then –

“Um,” Niall mutters, scratching at the back of his head. “Nothing seems to have happened. So.”

“So,” Zayn says, rolling his eyes and standing, but Niall shoots up before him, grabs Zayn’s hand in his.

“Seriously. I. Promise I won’t do any funky magic shit,” Niall says, smile tucked in the corner of his mouth, and Zayn believes him. Niall looks like he does when he says _Oi pass me the remote_ and _Wan’ another drink?_ , warm and happy, and Zayn trusts him with all of him.

 “Pinky promise I won’t cook you alive,” Zayn says, sticking out his free hand.

Niall hooks their pinkies and shakes. “Pinky promise I won’t trick you into lettin’ me superman you,” he says, and Zayn blurts a scandalised _what_ and pushes Niall over all at once, watching him cackle and try and fight Zayn off, shouting _watch me crank it watch me roll_ as Zayn tries to smother him. Zayn can hardly breathe through the laughter, the weightless happiness in the space behind the fire, but Niall is still no match for him. He tumbles and rolls with Niall until he gets his knees in the right spot and suddenly he’s got Niall flat on his back, smiling up at him a little wild-eyed and feral. Niall does his best to roll them over again, gulping great big breaths of air between his laughs, but he can’t win, not when Zayn is blazing like this, strong and fierce in his most human way. Niall grins victoriously even though he’s lost.

They’re both breathing hard, chests heaving, and Zayn’s suddenly so, so, aware of how he has Niall straddled on his lounge-room floor with the ridiculous cream rug under them, and Niall watching, his tongue against his canines and wrists twitching under Zayn’s hands with impatience.

Zayn kisses him hard, clacks their teeth and nips at his lip and he can feel the tendons in Niall’s arms, can feel Niall straining under him and holding back, too, letting Zayn have this. They barely get out of their clothes, manage to untangle themselves out of their shirts and shove each other’s jeans down until Zayn finally relents and rolls to give Niall better leverage.

“Hope this rug wasn’t expensive or anything,” Niall says hoarsely, pressed against the hollow of Zayn’s collarbone with the rough of his stubble. Zayn can feel his smile against his skin, the threat of toothpoint in his grin and the raw, hefty strength of Niall’s hands. It makes his skin tight and crawly, flickering with heat, but in a really, really, _really_ good way.

“Probl’y feed a family for a coupl’ months,” Zayn gasps out, and he can feel the weight of Niall, that heavy-bright metallic _clang_ behind his eyes that has him stunned. Somewhere under it he hears Niall’s rasping laugh.

Zayn scrapes his fingers over Niall’s stomach, gets his hand on his dick and even though the zipper of his jeans is digging into his thigh and the angle isn’t the best, it’s the right sort of awkward and difficult, the sort that has Zayn jerking up when Niall whines open-mouthed against him into the kiss. He’s gonna throw the fucking rug out as soon as they’re done, because otherwise the sight of it every day is just gonna be a reminder of _this_ , of the shagpile on his back and Niall coming into Zayn’s fist, grunting and pushing a hissed _“yeah, Zayn, yeah”_ between his teeth into the line of Zayn’s jaw. He’d have a tent in his pants every time he tried to watch tv.

Niall slumps against him and hums, sated, but he’s already moving, wiggling down and yanking Zayn’s jeans down properly after Zayn’s wiped his hand off on them.

Zayn runs his hands through Niall’s hair until its properly messy, sticking every which way. He grins up at Zayn from between his legs and looks completely stupid, all red and dopey and fond, and Zayn has to dig his fingers into the carpet to stop himself from pulling him up again to kiss him. When Niall actually starts sucking him off he swears, biting down on his lip, and Niall pulls off to laugh.

Zayn stares at the empty white ceiling and he can’t even _believe_ that, that the hot-wet-dirty sounds they’re making aren’t being written into the blankness of the walls, the floor, the roof, imprinted forever in their importance. The fire’s bigger than it’s been for ages, pushing out of him and making him arc off the ground as Niall digs his fingers into his side, palm flat and cool and strong against his stomach. He’s humming with it, bright and hot and racing, hyper aware of all the points where he’s in contact with Niall, and when he scrabbles at the ground Niall grabs his wrist, anchors him. He comes and can’t help the _“fuck”_ that he whines out shakily into the wide space of the room. Niall presses his face into his thigh for a moment, his hair soft and tickly.

 “You’ve got cum like fuckin’ hot sauce,” Niall mutters into his hip.

And _whoosh,_ like that, the hurried, sprinting fire leaves him again, loose and boneless on the floor and shaking with giggles as Niall bites him, playful but a little bit serious too, just enough for the mark to be red and visible in the watery winter light.

“Mmmm,” Niall hums, wiggling back up again to flop against Zayn’s side. He’s heavy and warm and Zayn closes his eyes, tries to savour the tiny, simple feeling that sits inside his chest when Niall slings his arm across him.

“You feel like lunch?” he says, clearing his throat and reaching up to flatten Niall’s hair away from his own mouth. He resists the urge to pat it too fondly, but then Niall snuffles against his neck and tucks his arm closer around Zayn, so he gives in and runs his fingers through it anyway.

“Yeah,” Niall says, quiet and sleepy, “Yeah. Later though. This is nice." 

Zayn closes his eyes, feels himself drifting off. “Yeah,” he manages. “It is.”  

***

Zayn can barely believe they made it to the last concert. And yet. Here they are, alive and more-or-less human. Sometimes a lot less, Zayn thinks wryly, thinking of how he’d made Niall come so hard he’d completely blown whatever grip he had and fallen through so bright he whited out both of their human visions for almost an hour. _Dimension-shifting orgasms_. Too bad he couldn’t add _that_ to his CV, right below _part- time supernatural spirit_ and above _full-time international popstar_.

Zayn wonders what they look like right now, to outsiders. Probably not all that different to how they were a week or two ago, maybe even all those months before this began proper. It seems so ridiculous, that no one could sense this as soon as they looked at them.  To Zayn they’re all so _real_ ; everything behind them is a little fuzzy unless he concentrates. It’s not so much seeing as feeling, sensing the heavy, bright auras that surround them all now like fractured halos. No - not surrounding them. _Are_ them.

 “Ready, boys?” Louis says, grinning. They can see the lights of the crowd from where they are, the roar already thundering through them.

“Ready,” they chorus, and they step out onstage together. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, concrit appreciated! As a quick writing note, personal reflections on their religion(s) would probably have been relevant, but I felt that stepped over (a fairly arbitrary, lbr) line of Too Personal. So. Yeah. That's why.


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